The company has hired consultants at Deloitte to provide advice on pay packages. According to Deloitte, the average package in the “outside world” includes an annual bonus of 75pc of an executive’s salary, and a long term bonus equivalent to half the salary.

Network Rail bosses currently have an annual bonus of up to 60pc of salary, while the long term element of the bonus is yet to be agreed.

The proposals mean David Higgins, chief executive of Network Rail, could be paid up to £700,000 in bonuses a year. The performance pay would be on top of his annual £560,000 salary, £160,660 pension payments and £15,000 additional benefits.

Three other executives – Robin Gisby, the operations director, Patrick Butcher, the financial director and Simon Kirby, the infrastructure director – could be given bonuses of about £450,000 a year.

Their pay will also be boosted next year by “golden handcuff” payments of £300,000 each, intended to stop them leaving Network Rail, pushing their overall pay package to more than £1m.

Graham Eccles, head of the remuneration committee, admitted at a meeting in December that Network Rail’s executives are among the highest paid in the public sector. But he said they remained in the “lower quartile” of pay compared to private sector organisations, and that Network Rail needs to ensure it is able to “retain and attract individuals”.

Deloitte also says: “NR [Network Rail] pension benefits are at the median to lower end of the scale.”

Mr Eccles told the meeting: “NR [Network Rail] is neither private nor public therefore the Committee has to find the right place for NR in this spectrum.

“Personal accountability for safety is not apparent in most public sector companies and equity pressures and set regulatory income is not apparent in private companies.

Rail travellers are facing six years of inflation-busting fare rises after Network Rail announced last week the biggest investment in the network since Victorian times.

According to new punctuality figures released by the railway industry last month, more than 40pc of trains are not arriving on time.

For the first time, train operators were forced to release internal industry figures showing how many services are more than one minute late.

Before then the only publicly available statistics were those which allowed commuter services five minutes’ leeway and long distance operators 10 minutes before trains were classified as being late.

Manuel Cortes, head of the TSSA rail union, said: “While passengers struggle to cope with ever rising rail fares, it is simply scandalous that they should be looking to reward themselves with double your money bonuses at a publicly funded company.

“These executives are living in cloud cuckoo land if they think the taxpayers are going to fund this blueprint to make themselves millionaires at our expense.”

A Network Rail spokesman said: “No decision on bonuses has been made by the remuneration committee and therefore any figures are supposition. Our pay structure is agreed by the Office of Rail Regulation and any future award of bonuses will depend on the performance of executives and the performance of the railway.”